How do you know when to stop...

How do you know when to stop? My animes tell me that pushing beyond your limits - drawing on will or spiritual strength - cannot but strengthen the body. However, I recently got myself into a position where I couldn't move and had to suspend my diet for a week. Where's the line between that extra bit of effort and driving yourself into the ground? Where does the suffering that brings strength become that which brings weakness and sets training back?

>getting your training advice from Japanese cartoons
Do you have a two-digit IQ? Or are you just Underage B&? Or both, maybe?

READ THE FUCKING STICKY, NIGGER FAGGOT KID. And STFU.

I've read the sticky and it doesn't have anything on this subject. Take a hike, bucko.

The struggle isn't in pushing your limits, but accepting where your limits are and how to overcome them efficiently.
Also: FORM.

Just completely forget anime-tier advice.
Of course you have to push yourself, but you also have to recover too. People (and not just anime) act like just going to the limits of injury is some magnificent act of willpower, when really, it's sticking to a consistent, well regimented plan that includes sufficient recovery time too.

The line between what a sports physician would call eustress and distress is not easy to find, but as long as you keep at it, err on the side of not-injury. It's a little different depending on whether you're doing conditioning or strength training.
Strength training, especially as a beginner, is easy; you set a rep goal and if you make it, you increase weight for next time. As your get closer to your genetic potential, it gets a little harder, but worry about that after you've done a good beginner program consistently for a year.

Conditioning is a little more complicated, since you hit the point where you need to have step back breaks a lot sooner than with strength training. And depending on how high impact your training is, you need to start out very slow for the sake of your joints and bones.

The big take away is that just randomly fucking around with exercise is a bad idea. Go FIND A PROGRAM and follow that.
I know there are a lot out there and as a beginner you don't really know what distinguishes them. Here, for strength training, find a proper description of the Starting Strength program (no, not the retarded gimped version regurgitated by anons on this board; pirate the book or something). For conditioning, do something like couch to 5k; or look up "circuit training".

>Read the sticky

If you had read the sticky then you would know it's outdated broscience and meme tier shit

Thanks, this seems like the kind of answer I was hoping for. For context:

I have been running just a couple of months now. I'm coming up to thirty, and about five years ago I was in great shape. Not as swole as some on here I'm sure, but shape I was really happy with. In any case, even then my cardio was awful. So I thought rather than lift heavy I would take the opposite approach and try to work on fitness first.

Prior to these few months I had been totally sedentary for about a year, focusing intently on work to the exclusion of all else. Thus I was in the worst shape of my life. I still haven't lost it all, though I've been working on diet as well.

Anyway, I had got to the point where a personal best was five miles on the treadmill. Small beans I'm sure, but working up from struggling to do 1km to doing half an hour was massive for me.

So anyway, on this particular day, I wake up with a hangover and decide to sweat it out. I have a couple of eggs and hit the cross-trainer. I get to the planned 5k. Then I get to 5 miles/ 8k. Then I think, why not go for 10k? And at that point I'm absolutely dead on my feet but it's been 50 minutes so why not make it an hour?

At 60 minutes the machine tells me to stop after a cooldown, so I do five more minutes, throw up, collapse and pass out.

It never occurred to me that it was even a possibility for that to happen, it kicked me out of keto and it set me back. So how should I have known when to stop? As far as I was concerned, the harder I pushed the faster I would see improvement.

Please see above. I did follow the couch to 5k, got past that point and then pushed too hard. I suppose I would like eventually to be able to do a half-marathon but really I want to be doing 5 miles a day as well as lifting, since if it's good enough for boxers then it must be a solid basis for a fitness regime. Want to fight again.

You overglorify the act of lifting. I can't find the proper words to describe how you sound, but I wouldn't be surprised if you imagined that a camera takes a slo-mo shot of your front as you lean back with closed eyes and take a last breath before another set of diddylifts, the picture stops and some slanted eye moonspeak covers the screen and the sub "his meditation before a heavy lift is astounding" pops up and the camera pans over to some chick that makes a noise as if she accidentally sat down on a 12 inch dildo as she looks over to you with a worried look on her face.

"if it doesn't challenge you it doesnt change you" might be discarded as "get back to fb / reddit" by some people on /fit, but it's pretty much the answer to your question.

Work out so hard, that you feel like you that you have worked out the next day.

Having to walk / move funny the next day is OK, as long as it doesn't still last two days later.

Give your body enough time to rest. Don't work out with DOMS (or at least don't work on the respective muscle groups).

Don't work out when you're sick. Don't go all "MIND OVER BODY!!". Of course you sometimes have to drag your ass to the gym, but don't go if you 100%, positively CAN'T go.

Set some goals. Put a workout plan together. Follow some program or whatever, but don't sprint into the gym and yell "DEEAAAADLIFT DAY!!!" and try 6pl8s just because you were hyped from some video or something, but track your progress. Slowly, but steadily move to higher weights / reps or whatever your goal is. Improvement takes time, so stick with it and find the reasons for why you might be hitting a plateau instead of going "MORE HELPS MORE!!" and add another workout day.

And last but not least:

Watch less anime.

Lmao. Okay for one listen to your body. Running is good but don't make it everything. Lift weights. Blah blah. Rest is important. Get yourself informed on what your body is saying.

This is pretty much the best advice it's possible to give, and in the most well-articulated fashion. I particularly like the poetic opening paragraph, which gave me a good laugh. Solid work, user.

You definitely understand where I am with the whole thing. It's just difficult to dial it back if you feel pumped up on a given day. Mind over body is such a positive idea it's hard not to get wrapped up in it.

here again
Context is helpful.

But my advice is mostly the same. It is a good idea, important even, to come to understand your body better, but it's hard to learn the signs.
That's why it's important to use a regimented plan that includes step backs, tapers, and things like, "I finally pushed to 8k today, but it felt terrible; I'll only do 8k again on my next long run day in a week, instead of pushing to 8.5k."

5 miles a day every day isn't elite, but it is way past novice too, especially if you're doing strength training the same day. So it's important to approach it carefully.

There are a few tips though.
A day when your condition is bad to start, such as when you wake up with a hangover, is not a day when you should try to set a new personal record.
For running specifically, if you start feeling a "rubbery" sensation in your legs, it's time to stop.

This guy's overall attitude is on the right track, but I have specific nitpicks.

Mostly I think you should work out when you have DOMS, and when you're mildly sick, just make it a milder workout.

But yes, this is what I was getting at. It's not the glorious triumph it feels like to work hard on an endorphin high. It's restricting yourself to following a careful plan, and continuing to follow that plan even as the post workout high tapers off.

>listen to your body
>Get yourself informed on what your body is saying
This is the bit I don't get. Because it sounds like
>Waa sitting on the sofa and eating pizza is nice, running is mean
so how to know when to ignore it and when it is saying
>Seriously man, it's all fun and games but I might die here
?

Alright, I'll try to pay heed to the rubbery legs idea. I just really hate feeling as though I can't do something, so I tend to grit my teeth and push harder. Unfortunately, since I also have epilepsy it can really fuck me up. I'm terrible at looking after myself for this reason.

Still, I will try to pace myself more. Does it sound reasonable to leave increasing distance/ speed and just get to a place where I can reasonably run 5k and do a full workout every time I hit the gym, then see about adding it up? I managed 1.5 miles in 12minutes - some military standard or another - but it absolutely killed me.

Patience is hard. I know it's an absolute must for fitness, but seeing the scales showing no significant change is a bastard when you know you could have dug that bit deeper.

>My animus have told me to keep pushing my boundaries like mad
>I woke up with a hangover and worked out because why not
>Did I mention I decided to go 2km further than my best up until then?
>I also went for five more minutes than the crosstrainer told me to
>Why on earth wasn't my body able to handle this?

>keto

Fufufu~
Actually it was >3km. I did 7 miles total. But yes, I do see your point. It was probably a dumb thing to do.

Slightly different question: why not push harder hung over? I assumed that it was all mental. It's not like your muscles fall off or anything, so why should you be weaker? I mean, it feels like shit but surely it isn't actually any worse.

Well how would you lose weight then, Mr. Scott? I'm sick of being overweight. At least I'm not obese anymore but still, it sucks.

I dunno user, I don't workout with a cold because I always thought that it fucks over ones heart bretty bad. Just did a quick googling and apparently moderate to light cardio is no problem, but heavy weightlifting has a negative effect on your immune system. Also, you can probably still get a good workout in when you have minimal DOMS, but I'd stay away from it when you are pretty damn sore. Landed me in snap city for two weeks when I somehow pulled my left lat.

"Listen to your body" doesn't mean that you should look inside of yourself when you're sitting on the couch, but it means that you should for example find your limits. Can you properly walk after that workout? Could you just do this again, barely breaking a sweat? Can you go all out today, or do you have to cut it short? Stuff like that. You can overcome your bodys "Dude, no!" to a certain degree, but don't overdo it with a "BODY FOLLOWS WHERE MIND GOES!!" attitude.

Of couse being hungover screws with your workout. You feel like shit, you are dehydrated, your blood sugar is low, you probably didn't sleep enough and maybe you're still a bit buzzed. Of course I've described quite a strong hangover, but how the fuck wouldn't that interfere with your workout?

>Well how would you lose weight then, Mr. Scott? I'm sick of being overweight. At least I'm not obese anymore but still, it sucks.

Aaand this is the reason you even started the thread. Learn some patience, not-so-young-anymore padavan. Do you want to go to a beach body contest in four weeks? No? Then why not try a good ol' small caloric deficit + slowly increasing the intensity of your workout? Why shoot for 5miles running all day erry' day + liftan while on keto?

Pls don't kys with DNP next week, OP.

All good questions m8. I suppose it's annoying to me that I can't do what I was able to in my early twenties. Not to mention, it's hard to pledge yourself to no fun allowed over an exorbitant length of time. That is to say, no junk food, no booze.

There are aesthetic considerations to all this, but what I really want is to be fit enough and strong enough to fight competitive judo again. As it is, I've stopped training and I don't want to restart until my fitness is good, my weight is back under 80kg and I feel strong again. Fitting all that round being an adult and having a job feels like a massive ask, especially when I'm accustomed to cutting loose over the weekend.

its a lifestyle choice.
you are not the only one here who has to balance out freetime/workouts/work.

if you dont enjoy it I would say stop doing it.
I dunno what you want to hear.

Yeah, you're right. I do enjoy it, albeit less so than when I had good friends beside me. I suppose what I would like to hear is that I can work out and still drink and have a pizza over the weekend and still improve.

depends on how well you ate/worked out under the week.
by drinking I suppose you mean just a few beers and not like drinking yourself into a coma because that shit will basically kill all your gains.

>not like drinking yourself into a coma because that shit will basically kill all your gains.
Could you please explain? I'm woefully under-informed I suppose, but 5+ years ago I would drink every night and still pack it on. Do I really need to put down the vodka altogether if I'm to regain my strength?

PS - the idea would be to work out solidly and follow a sensible clean, high protein diet over the course of the week and cut loose over an evening and the following afternoon.

I think you might have a problem with alcohol.
How about working on that shit first because that shit aint normal.

Yeah man, I'm working on it. Seriously, I went three months without and I'm in therapy but the idea of putting it down altogether still sounds impossible to me. Still, that seems like more of an /r9k/ topic than a Veeky Forums one. It's a work in progress anyway.